Group Plans Massive Housing Complex for West Farms Road

Editor's Note: This story first appeared in the latest issue of the Tremont Tribune, out now.

A development group is proposing to build a series of high-rise apartment buildings and retail shops in West Farms and Crotona Park East, in what the city is calling one of the largest private rezoning projects undertaken in the Bronx for several decades.

Signature Urban Properties, a real estate group headed by former New York City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, purchased the five-acre site, which runs along West Farms Road and the Sheridan Expressway and north and south of the Cross Bronx Expressway.

The group has requested that the city rezone the 11-block area to allow for residential development in order to construct 10 buildings, each approximately 15 stories high made up of 1,325 apartment units, 663 of which would be affordable housing.

Public hearing sparks zoning debate

A zoning war broke out last night at a public hearing over a medical center's plans to build a 13-story mixed use building in Belmont.

Medalliance medical center is hoping to change zoning in the area, which currently allows buildings of up to four-stories high, to expand its location at 625 East Fordham Road.

Owner Sean Daneshvar is already constructing a three-story expansion to the center’s current building, but wants to add an additional 10-stories of residential apartments above it.

Residents who expressed hesitation about the rezoning clashed with supporters of Medalliance, who came out in droves, chanting and waving signs that read “Better for the Bronx,” and “More Jobs, More Health.”

Supporters of Medalliance rallied at a Feb. 3 public hearing in favor of rezoning.

Theresa Kemp-Castro, a patient at Medalliance for the past four years, came to show her support, crediting the doctors and nurses at the clinic with saving her life after an accident that left her partially paralyzed.

“I’m where I am today because of Medalliance,” she said, adding that an expansion of the center would increase the number of health services available to the community. “There are a lot of elderly and sick people nearby that need a clinic. It would mean a lot.”